Frozen In Fire
by WriterRen
Summary: Where does hatred end? For Sasuke the path is never-ending, always leading somewhere. For Eray it's simply a path to nowhere. Can the only person who shares Sasuke's past save him from being consumed by revenge, or is it too late? SasuOC BEING REVAMPED.
1. Frozen Over

**A/N For anyone who is confused, this story was started 5 years ago but never completed. I am revamping it from the beginning with a slightly different plot direction and hopefully some much-improved writing. I hope to update every Friday. Reviews are much appreciated. **

Chapter One: Frozen Over

It was cold... No, it was beyond cold. A deadly chill clung to the forest with not a single ounce of life to be found. Not a trace of warmth could be discovered in the air. Everything was frozen. The ground lay deep in white snow; hard, frozen snow packed with ice. The creeks and streams that normally flowed freely through the forest, too, remained encased in ice.

And like the lifeless wood around him, everything in the youngest Uchiha felt dead and frozen over, without a trace of life or warmth or emotion. No joy, happiness, or even sorrow would escape him. He did not even allow pain to faze him. No longer could such things penetrate his cold heart or even his icy flesh. And despite however hard he tried to deny it, he truly was turning into the very person he hoped to destroy. In truth, he was becoming more and more like Itachi.

Irony is cruel indeed that he, Uchiha Sasuke, should be turning into his brother. Even more ironic was that he was doing so through his constant search for power, power he would use to destroy Itachi's life the way Itachi had destroyed Sasuke's. In his pursuit of power Sasuke had abandoned anything and everything he cared about, simultaneously abandoning that which separated him from his brother. For without his friends, Sasuke was left with only one mission and it consumed him to the point of obsession: revenge.

His eyes no longer held fear or regret as they might once have. The seldom smiles of his youth had diminished to an occasional cocky smirk. His eyes, which once held an arrogant, amused, and sometimes happy glint, no longer held any emotion at all. His two black orbs were that of an empty shell, cold and hard and absent of all emotion. The only things they reflected were determined lust, starved of power. And even when Sasuke's eyes blazed red, his expression read only of hate.

Nothing could change that. Even to himself, the Uchiha felt beyond reproach. He was beyond emotion, beyond pain, and beyond returning to his former self. He was what he wanted to be, and only what he wanted to be. And the last thing that he wanted was to be the scared little boy or the cool and unconcerned youth he had been. No. He had gone beyond that. His cool, but harmless, attitude had become chilling, like a violent winter storm. His unconcern had become carelessness. Sasuke was numb to everything and everyone around him.

If something was not to his liking, he altered it to his tastes. He would have no one's way but his own. He would accept nothing but himself and what _he_ wanted in his life. He buried old friends and emotions in the the debts of his icy soul. And he held no regret. He held nothing. He felt nothing.

But he refused to _be_ nothing.

As Uchiha Sasuke raced from tree to tree as quickly as his chakra would allow, his surroundings became a blur of white, the snow on the ground blending with the fierce snow of the sky in a rapid wind. As he proceeded in the woods, he thought he could almost feel a certain young shinobi's kunai against his throat and the cackling of his former twisted, snake-controlling sensei. But it was all in his head. Orochimaru was dead and while Kabuto was determined to avenge his master, Sasuke did not consider him worthy of a second thought. It was the sting of the frozen snowflakes that caused his eyes to wince and his skin to burn. But he ignored it. His attention fell elsewhere.

In the distance a certain young girl did not go unfazed by the storm. For though she too was usually quite unfazed by pain and used to harsh winters such as this, her energy was low and her torn skin bled and burned as each wound was ripped open by the harsh winds and chilling air. But the young girl was far too stubborn, and far too determined to let the weather do her in. Ignoring the searing pain that coursed throughout her aching body and the shaking of her tired limbs, she gathered herself off the frozen earth and proceeded forward.

So thick was the falling snow that Sasuke was forced to continue his silent procedure, as well, just to keep sight of her. Though he couldn't quite get a good view of her through the whitewashed air, he could see her collapse several times into the waist-high snow. Deciding it would do herself no good to gain a cold on top of her injuries, she leaped from the icy ground to the top of a nearby tree.

The kunoichi sensed the presence of another's chakra. For several leagues she acted as though she felt nothing and attempted to shake the presence loose, but found she could not. The presence was moving, moving with her in the same direction. Without warning, she fell from her branch and into the deep sea of white. Her body coursed with pain and she saw the white earth around stain with a puddle of blood- her blood-before everything began to grow black.


	2. Slowly Melting

Chapter Two: Slowly Melting

Determined not to allow the darkness to conquer her sight, the kunoichi forced herself to rise, struggling against the surrounding snow. Gathering all her remaining strength, she pushed against the icy ground, trying to elevate herself above the white earth. Her arms shaking violently, she managed to pull herself to her knees. Panting heavily, she attempted to force the weight off her body to her feet. Her legs began to quiver as she straightened up.

Successfully standing, she took a step forward, stumbled, but prevented a second fall by thrusting forward her other foot. Leaning against the surrounding trees for support, the kunoichi continued moving, but not very much so. She had barely taken a handful of steps before gasping as she felt herself fall forward again. She broke the fall by grasping unto another tree. Just then, Sasuke noticed a trail of red staining the white forest floor, leading to her and seeping through her clothes.

Debating whether or not to reveal himself, he remained out of sight. But Sasuke didn't realize that the injured young woman could still sense his chakra, as he could hers. She fell to her knees and clutched her stomach. Blood continued to seep through at an alarming rate as she doubled over in pain. At that very moment, the kunoichi began coughing violently as her mouth stained the snow with more blood. Leaping from the tree that had been his post, Sasuke landed quickly beside the dying girl.

Fighting to stay conscious, the girl felt herself begin to collapse into the snow. She braced herself for the impact of the chilling ice, but it never came. She felt something grab her from behind an instant before her face touched the earth, then she sank into a subconscious state.

_I have to… stay awake…_ was the injured ninja's sole, reoccurring thought as her eyes began to flutter open. She awoke to find herself arched against a tree, only she was several yards above the ground. Startled, she tried to remember how she had got up there.

All she could recall was pain, major blood loss, and bracing herself for the fall that never came. Then she remembered. The other presence she had felt, the powerful chakra. She could still sense it...it was near. In fact it was…right in front of her.

Quickly regaining her composure, the younger of the two teens instinctively pulled out her hidden kunai in a defensive manner.

"Well, well… so you're finally awake," the rogue ninja mused. The girl only glared in response, keeping her kunai protectively placed in front of her, its sharp end facing out and away from her own body.

"Uchiha…" she panted. She should run, she should _move_, move away. But this was impossible in her current state.

"What do you want?" she asked, her tone sharp and full of warning. "What are you doing here, Sasuke?"

Her eyes were dark blue, a shade above black, and rimmed with a thin line of crimson red around the pupil. A similar, but thicker crimson line encircled the color of her eyes, separating the white's of her eyes from the night blue, and then the blue from her black pupils. Her familiar eyes narrowed at Sasuke in anger, frustration, and mistrust.

"Looks like you had some trouble escaping. Let's be honest-"

"That'd be a switch," the kunoichi snapped, hissing sharply at a fresh wave of pain.

"You need my help, and I could use yours," Sasuke continued. "You're the only one who can control these woods. So what do you say we make a deal?"

Sasuke's left hand began to glow with chakra as it hovered above the wound in her side, not close enough to heal it. "Your help..." he said quietly as he stroked her cheek with his free hand, healing the cuts as he did. "For mine. Just like old times, Eray."

Eray growled and jerked her face away from his touch.

"I don't...trust you..." she hissed as the pain increased in her side. "Just stay...away...from me..." The hoarseness of her voice did not conceal the hatred in her tone. Eray glared threateningly, despite that they both knew she was powerless to carry out her threat.

Sasuke gave her a cruel smirk that did not belong on him, that did not belong on the face of her childhood friend. Eray struggled again against the blackness overtaking her vision, her eyes focused on the shinobi before her.

Sasuke placed a hand under her chin. She was too weak to pull away.

"Oh Ahteray, you always did amuse me," he laughed in a cruelly amused voice, that stupid smirk still in place. "I'm not giving you a choice."


	3. The Painful Past

Chapter 3: The Painful Past

* * *

Eray awoke to feel the pain in her side had lessened. She slowly sat up, ignoring the dull ache of her bruised and bloodied body. She was on a damp, but snowless bit of ground surrounded by a clump of trees. She held her head in her hands, trying to remember what had happened.

She'd been alone, injured in the woods, drawing enough strength from the trees to press forward. Then she'd collapsed, overcome by the pain. And then...Uchiha.

Eray's head jerked up, her eyes quickly scanning her surroundings for the the black-haired ninja. She tried to sense his presence through her chakra, but a massive headache prevented her from concentrating. She knew Sasuke wouldn't have ventured far. She was the only one who could navigate the woods. That's the reason he had spared her in the first place.

The gleam of her kunai lying near her feet caught her eye. She picked it up and turned it over in her hand. She could end this now. She didn't have a reason to keep going and if she was dead...well she wasn't much use to the people who wanted her power dead. And if she could stop those people, then maybe...

She aimed the point of the kunai toward her heart and shut her eyes, prepared to join her family in the afterlife.

Suddenly, the kunai flew from her hand, knocked to the ground in the distance. Eray was roughly pulled off the ground by a strong grip on her wrists. She opened her eyes to find Uchiha Sasuke's cold onyx orbs staring into hers.

"Just what do you think you're doing, Eray?" he asked coldly with a frightening edge of anger.

"You do it then," she said quietly, venomously. "You kill me. It's all the same to me."

"You're no use to me dead," he said, tightening his grip on her wrists as she squirmed to escape his grasp. She tried to kick him, but in the blink of an eye he was behind her, pinning her arms to her side.

"Frankly, I'm surprised at you, Eray," Sasuke stated in a condescending tone that revealed nothing of the surprise he claimed to feel. "I didn't think you were the type to take the easy way out."

"_Easy?"_ she growled. "You think anything about this is _easy?_ You of all people should know how hard it is to live this way. I don't have anything left to live for."

"Oh, yes you do. You're going to stay alive at least long enough to get me through these woods," he hissed. "Unlike you, I have a haven't forgotten my reason for living. I haven't forgotten my duty to avenge the deaths of my family. My brother will pay for what he's done with his life. I'll personally see to that," he swore, voice filled with hatred.

"You, on the other hand, don't seem to find killing your sister a compelling enough goal to live for."

Eray tensed at his words.

"Don't speak of things that you don't understand," she muttered darkly.

A cold hand clasped around her throat, but Eray didn't flinch.

"Go ahead," she said in an icy tone, her face void of emotion. Sasuke smirked.

"You really do want to die, don't you? It's too bad for you, Ahteray, that I'm far from done with you."

"What do you want, Sasuke?" she asked, too exhausted to argue anymore. "You couldn't have come to these woods by mistake. Were you seeking me out? For what purpose? And why now? After four years, you just turn up out of nowhere and-"

"You always did talk too much, Eray," Sasuke cut her off with an irritated look. "I'll reveal my plans when I see fit, and no sooner."

"Whatever it is you want, I won't help you." Eray's tone was resolute, but filled with a quiet, resigned sadness that reflected in her gaze towards her childhood friend.

Sasuke smirked in amusement. "You make it sound like I'm giving you the option."

"What will you do if I refuse?" she asked in the same resigned tone. "I'm 'no good to you dead.'"

"I healed you," he reminded the kunoichi, growing frustrated with the look of pity she sent his way. "You're indebted to me."

"I never asked you to heal me," she whispered angrily. "What I asked-what I _begged_ for- was for you to stay. And you didn't. I don't owe you a thing."

"You act so self-righteous," he sneered. "But you left soon after, for almost the exact same reason."

"But I didn't leave a traitor. I didn't join the enemy. I could go back anytime, but there wouldn't be any point. After you left, there was nothing for me in Konoha. You swore you wouldn't leave, but you did."

"I was going to come back for you. And here I am."

"For reasons you have yet to disclose. And after _four years _without so much as a word to me!" Eray had a unique way of making her tone cold as ice, and her words as scalding as fire. Even Sasuke was forced to acknowledge the tiniest pang of guilt somewhere deep, _deep_ in his dark soul.

"Don't think that I don't know what you've been doing all this time," she said. "Don't think that I'll help you. Drag me along with you, or leave me here to die. I won't help you either way."

Sasuke's smirk grew. He would be the only one giving an ultimatum.

"Eray-chan," he said in a sickly sweet voice that made her cringe. "You act as if I'm entirely selfish-"

"You are."

"But I have something of value to you, as well."

She sneered at his words, was silent a long time, then said quietly, "You were the last valuable thing in my life. My best friend. But that person is gone, isn't he?"

"He isn't gone," Sasuke defended. "He's changed. He's stronger. But he's right here. I _did _come back for you."

"You came," she corrected, "to use me for your own selfish gains. Don't deny it. Don't bother lying. I can see right through you." The red outer rim of Ahteray's iris dispersed across the blue of her eyes like blood in water, dying her orbs crimson.

"So you have developed your bloodline limit. The akaigan. But I can help you develop it further." His words were slick. Like a snake.

"Is that what you came for? That's quite odd, seeing as the sharingan is the more advanced evolution." But Eray was no Eve. She had no intention of tasting the fruits of Sasuke's temptations.

"I came," he said coldly, "for _you._ We only have each other, Ahteray." But it's harder to resist when the Devil sounds sincere. "It's been that way ever since that night."

He didn't need to specify what night he meant. Only one night stood out in their memories like a never-ending nightmare.

_The night was a scene of ruby-red and the darkest black as crimson blood and fire blended with the atmosphere of night._

_The roars of flames were the only sounds echoing endlessly through the chilling air. The heat of the massive fire could not be felt by the ice-cold bodies, drained of their spirits forever. The chill and stench of death dominated the bloodstained air and earth._

_A tiny girl could feel nothing but the numb sensation of pure terror. Shaking violently, her skin covered in millions of tiny bumps, her tears fell silently from her blue and red eyes._

_Dark brown hair fell free, the blistering wind tossing the red-stained locks about. Too weak to stand, she sat, hugging her knees to her rapidly bobbing chest, her nails clawing at her scarred flesh._

_She didn't understand…she was frozen body, mind, and soul in an ice she could not shake. The blood flowing through her veins and freely down her porcelain flesh burned like fire and stung like the coldest ice._

"_W-w-why?" she breathed, her voice quaking as her form. "WHY?" The girl's shrieks blended with the roaring flames and pierced the frozen air of night. Fire rose to its greatest height, looming over the horrific scene and surrounding the source of these wails._

"_Why?" the voice of an older woman repeated in her malicious tone, looming over the small child, her form shrouded in shadows. The murderess laughed as she stood there, a triumphant smile on her blood-coated face._

"_My dear little Ahteray," she said, the words sliding of her tongue, each piercing the small girl's heart like a knife._

"_There's no need to worry. I won't kill you. Not yet anyway."_

_Eray's injured body shook like a leaf in a violent wind as she repeated her question to the red-eyed monster, those crimson eyes piercing through the darkness around them._

"_Simple, little one. I required a power and this is how I obtained it. But don't fear, Eray. I won't kill you until you're much older. Only then can I obtain what I truly desire."_

"_What's that?" the girl shouted, her tone now laced with hate as her eyes reflected the scene of night-blue and red around her. The crimson rims of her orbs glowed and burned with the force of the surrounding flames._

"_Dear little sister-"_

"_You're no sister of mine! The only blood we share is the blood of a traitor." Ahteray spoke with knowledge beyond her years. "You're exactly like him. You're exactly like our father. But I'm nothing like you or him…" Eray spat, anger and hatred surged through her body like flames gaining fuel._

"_Is that so?" Ahteray's half-sister questioned in rage. "You mean this blood?" the short haired, elder brunette asked as she bent to scoop her father's spilt blood into her own hand._

"_This blood connects us for all eternity, Ahteray! This blood is what gives us our power! This blood runs though our veins! This blood is that of an ancient clan which we are privileged to have been born into. But this blood," the crimson-eyed girl spat, dipping her other hand into the pool of red beside her, "belongs only to you."_

"_Your mother wasn't good enough for this clan. Her blood has soiled that of our family and weakened you forever, you little mutt. You're too weak. Too forgiving. You'll never learn to control the ice and fire raging in your soul. Had you been born to another mother you wouldn't even have the ability to manipulate ice as you do. As it is, it causes an unbalance. It's time you stopped trying to hide who you are and embrace your ancient blood! Forget your mother's petty abilities and embrace the fire, let it fully consume you, Eray! That's the only way you'll ever gain power! It's the only way you'll survive!" she yelled, the words venom on her lashing tongue._

"_I don't want power! I'm not like you, Senka!" _

_Senka's eyes narrowed dangerously as she seized Eray's hand with the one bearing their father's blood. Smearing the blood of the ice-user's mother on Eray's hand, Senka hissed, "No you're not. That's why you will never be strong enough to survive, to call yourself a true Hidane… This blood," she said yanking little Ahteray's hand further, "is yours and no one else's, little brat! I do not share THIS blood with you. Your mother is dead along with everyone else! This blood is yours and yours alone, Ahteray."_

"_Did you kill them all?" Eray shrieked. "Where are my brothers?Where are Shukka and Karyoku?" the child asked as more tears streamed down her cut cheeks._

"_Hmph! They are no better than you… Always protecting __**you**__, not even their real sister! Their blood was wasted serving this village. They are a waste! Konoha is a waste! You are a waste! But I will fix all that," Senka vowed. _

_Without directly answering Eray's question, she ceased her explanations, giving the small girl hope that her brothers had not met the same fate as those around her._

_Leaving the little girl to soak in all that had happened, the older girl rose to take her leave. She paused at the doorway with one final comment. Those words still haunted Eray._

"_You _will _embrace your inner fire. I shall help you along, little sister."_

_A pain like no other found Eray. Her blood burned like ice. The young girl emitted a cry of shear terror as the pain filled her tiny body and a strange power grew within her. A ruby red mark that glimmered like the blood around her became visible on her right shoulder. Slowly, a star-like shape took form._

_The symbol of fire shown bright as day on her shoulder blade against the darkness about her. Doubled over in pain, the young girl collapsed, giving way to darkness, but not before she heard Senka's final words._

"_Goodbye, Eray...for now…Hi-bana."_

_Ahteray's vision became a scene of bright and burning flames and then blackness consumed her sight. _

"Our families were murdered on the same night, mine by my brother, yours by your sister," Sasuke said, placing a hand beneath her chin, recalling her attention. "Coming with me boils down to one simple question, Eray: do you want your revenge, or not?"

The young kunoichi looked into the distance, the rims of her eyes shrinking and expanding in a rapid pattern: red, blue, red, blue.

Sasuke placed his hands on her shoulders and whispered in her ear from behind. "I can't do it without you, Eray. I need you. You need me."

A shiver ran down her spine at his words, at his hot breath hitting her ear. Instinct told her to run, but the image of her sister laughing at the flood of blood burned before her eyes.

Her voice was low and venomous, the crackle of embers gaining strength.

"Fine. I'll go with you."

Sasuke chuckled. "That's my girl." But she didn't catch his words, her attention consumed elsewhere.

She watched the rising sun burn the blue night away, eyes red and blazing.

* * *

**A/N My humblest apologies for taking SO LONG to update! But if those of you who read the original version recall, this one chapter was actually three much longer chapters which I've edited down significantly into just this one. Some of the flashbacks/memories I cut from this part will be included in future chapters, but will be much more concise. Thank you to everyone who has added this story to their favorites, story alert, and especially to those who review. I am grateful to old and new readers of this story alike, but my goodness, I still can't believe some of you have stuck with it for 6 years! I never would have continued if not for your support. Chapter 4 is already in the works. I'll try to update in a timely manner. This time Frozen in Fire will likely only span about 10-15 chapters, because I already have a sequel underway. Head's up! The storyline is much darker this time around. **


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